I dunno. I think you could argue that Bruce, Pryor, Carlin et al were culture (god i hate this word) disrupters. OTOH nearly all of the radio shock jocks were just whiny crude a*holes.

But some veer into politics-via-lies. Mancow Muller, on Mancow's Morning Madhouse, used to do [expletive] like call Howard Dean a traitor for opposing the Iraq War, and claim that waterboarding is not torture. That's not the old Carlin style of speaking truth to power that's the FOX News style of promoting power at the sake of misinforming the public because your dogma/fundamentalism has blinded you.

The word [expletive] isn't the problem. Aussies and Brits use it to describe a person. "Oy, 'e's a good [expletive] " is a relatively common phrase. Sam Bee calling Ivanka that is a great selection of words, because it unbridles the anger that Bee has for Ivanka, woman-to-woman, and lays it all bare. It's completely unvarnished and it probably should be in an age where the NY Times and CNN now just go ahead and say "[expletive]" because that's how Ivanka's dad describes the female reproductive system. Tucker Carlson, a rich white conservative dude, using [expletive] to describe a woman he disagrees with, has no value, there is no meaning other than vile dismissiveness.

2. The fact we have shock jock shows at all is a sign of a garbage culture

Kinda. Lenny Bruce was a shock jock without a radio show. Louis CK at his height was the same. Richard Pryor. There are comedian shock jocks like Stern and people's local morning radio stars who say outrageous things for laughs.

When it's a shock jock on political television, however, who is trying to convince people to believe in a thing/group, and that thing/group is insidious, then it' alarming. And unacceptable. I'm more concerned that we have an ignorant public illiterate to this who is incapable of drawing the line between "Un-PC in comedy can be insightful because it makes you think about and confront your feelings about uncomfortable things" and "Misogyny--and Whataboutism that excuses it--on FOX News run amok is a bad thing because it seeks to normalize misogyny." Plenty of people are not as smart as you or I or a lot of the posters on this board, and incapable of knowing the difference between those things.

I was not trying to say that Tucker is a shock jock doing a TV political show, just that he went on a shock jock show back from 2006-2011 and said some really ignorant crap. But you are right - shock jock "culture" has infiltrated/infected many other parts of our culture and may be a more influential thing that we'd like to admit.

lukethedrifter wrote:

I dunno. I think you could argue that Bruce, Pryor, Carlin et al were culture (god i hate this word) disrupters. OTOH nearly all of the radio shock jocks were just whiny crude a*holes.

This is a good point. All of these things are probably on a spectrum, and there is some gray area here. I watched some old Carlin stuff recently. Much of it has stood the test of time really well, but there are definitely things in there that would not fly today. I guess that is the difference to me - Carlin and people similar to him actually did say some important things, mixed with some other stuff that might be problematic. Whereas when I listened to Howard Stern or Mancow, I knew what they were saying was 99% trash even at the time I was listening to it, 20 years ago.

In general, as long as comedians are "punching up" and not down, they are going to stand the test of time a lot better. The Carlin clips that you see shared on social media today are those where he was "punching up". Shock jocks just punch in every direction and see what gets the most laughs, even if they are appealing to sexism or racism.

So yeah, Tucker's awful "jokes" on this dumb radio show....he 100% knew at that time that what he said was awful. This was 2006-11 timeframe, not the 1970s, and I imagine some of it would have been found offensive even back then.

Somebody just as [expletive] will take Tucker’s place. Dan Bongino anyone?

Yes. Getting rid of Bill O'Reilly seemed good, but then his spot went to Tucker. I get the impression he's been substantially worse, leaning in to white nationalism and what have you, though maybe O'Reilly would have gone the same way to support the team.

While calling into a radio show, Carlson defended child rape and made multiple sexist and racist remarks. Between 2006 and 2011, Carlson spent approximately an hour a week calling in to the Bubba the Love Sponge Show, a popular shock jock radio program, to talk to the hosts about a variety of cultural and political topics. During those conversations, Carlson downplayed the actions of Warren Jeffs, who was involved in arranging illegal marriages between adults and underage girls; talked about sex and young girls; defended statutory rape; used derogatory language towards Iraqis and Afghans; and claimed former President Barack Obama (then a U.S. Senator) was not truly Black; among other things.

White supremacists revere Carlson. White supremacists openly admire Carlson’s ability to mainstream extremist talking points. Not only do they consider his show a platform to push their messaging, but they also view Carlson as an influential leader laying the way forward for their movement through his ideas. They have made it explicit on their shows and in their private chat messages.

Quote:

Former Klu Klux Klan Grand Wizard David Duke suggested Jewish people were conspiring against Carlson by unearthing his audio. A teaser for David Duke’s radio show on the topic referred to the audio of Carlson as a “(((scandal))),” using the anti-Semitic dog whistle of the triple parentheses. During Duke’s March 11 show, his guest Augustus Invictus claimed that Carlson is being boycotted because he criticized Jewish members of the “mainstream media” who “sold us … wars” in his book Ship of Fools.

White supremacist podcast host Jared Howe: “This glorious son of a [expletive] doubles down, and praise is heaped upon him by his allies for it.” In the podcast he hosts on “crying Nazi” Christopher Cantwell’s site The Radical Agenda, Howe praised Carlson’s unapologetic response to the unearthing of his past misogynistic and racist comments.

"History will not looking kindly on" is how losers talk. I've heard it so many times. History will not look kindly on McConnell, Trump, Ryan, etc.

Well you know what, all those guys are winners, they are kicking the ass of ever good and decent person in America and quite frankly the world. You know what I'd like history to look back on? That's to see those mother [expletive] blood running in the streets of Washington and the average person rising up to rid our world of them. That's what I want history to show because if in 50 years the history books finish with "Donald Trump was the worst President ever." So what? He still won, he still got what he wanted.